Book Reviews

Diana Cabaldon

The Outlander series (Jamie and Clare) Time Travel

The Lord John Series

Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade

Lord John and the Hand of the Devil

Richard Dawkins (2009)

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH: The Evidence for Evolution.

Most people think that evolution is a theory… like creationism, or

intelligent design. Some people believe in it. Many do not.

Today, most, if not all scientists accept evolution not just as a theory -

as Charles Darwin had proposed: they accept evolution as a fact.

Richard Dawkins has written this book to prove the scientific observation

that evolution is a fact. Hawkins provides the reader with virtual mountains

of evidence to support his assertion. Dawkins delves into the documentation

with a fine tooth comb: he draws upon the fossil record, the geological

evidence, the embryonic development of living creatures and and molecular

genetics to prove one essential point. We are perched on a small twig of the

tree of life, and the tree of life – linking all living things on our planet -is no

accident: it is the direct consequence of evolution by natural (non-random)

selection.

Put simply, the argument goes like this. The scientific evidence

demonstrates, beyond doubt, that all living creatures have evolved , slowly,

sometimes imperceptibly, over billions of years from a common ancestor (a

single cell). Throughout time, there was a continual process of branching

out from the common tree of life. Different species of plants and animals

emerged, each bearing less and less resemblance to their ever more remote

ancestors.

Evolution takes place in four steps.

• DNA modification by mutation which

• gives survivability advantages followed by
• producing offspring with the same trait and finally
• there are multiple recipients of the same trait where a species is created.

Evolution is about creating a species, not just changing one individual. Each one of the
four steps is necessary.

Dawkins also likes to clear up the idea that evolution is random. It isn't, he says. It's
overseen by natural selection, commonly reduced to what Darwin (and Herbert Spencer,
who coined the term) called "survival of the fittest."

Individual mutations are random, but the whole process is not. Useful mutations survive.
Others do not. Every organism that lives is the "elite of the elite of the elite," he says.
It's as if every organism on the planet is the supreme champion — for now, anyway — of
the greatest reality show of all time, Survivor: Earth.

REVISE

How did this happen? By the biological process of genetic mutation.

Spontaneous mutations or changes in an organism’s genetic code frequently

can be harmful. But sometimes (very rarely) a mutation results in a change

that provides a survival advantage. What this means is that the mutation

produces some superior characteristic which enables the organism to adapt

better to its environment and to leave more offspring (copies of its genes)

that do others in the population.

Darwin called this mechanism of evolution natural selection. This

term refers to the process in nature by which only the organisms that are best

adapted to their environment tend to survive. Through the processes of

mating and reproduction, the “survivors” transmit their genetic

characteristics to the next generation within the same species.

• Species are reproductive communities, with their members capable of

interbreeding among themselves, and not, as the general rule, with

members of other species.

Evolution of new species occurs when changes in the environment produce

geographical barriers which separate members of a species and prevent their

interbreeding. A seaway, for example, might develop between two formally

connected areas of land; conversely, land might emerge separating formally

connected oceans Over time, continual changes occur in the adaptations of

each of the separated populations so that eventually they evolve into separate

species. When this happens interbreeding will no longer be possible between

the members of the two now separate species.

Homo sapiens : the human species

Dawkins evidence for evolution explodes virtually all of the common

misunderstandings about human beings and their relationships to other

creatures on earth. Human beings are not descended from monkeys. The two

species are cousins .They are both descended from a common, long past

ancestor.

Our planet, earth, has a scientifically measured age of about 4.6

billion years (roughly 46 million centuries.) Thus life began, not

thousands of years ago, but tens of millions of years ago. Human

beings, evolved as the species homo sapiens about 250,000 years ago.

So, we are relative newcomers, a recent twig on the tree of life.

DNA Blueprint for Life of an Organism
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the substance that contains the genetic instructions used
in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. DNA is often
compared to a set of blueprints or a recipe, or a code, since it contains the instructions
needed to construct other components of cells. The DNA segments that carry this genetic
information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are
involved in regulating the use of this genetic information.

A gene is the basic unit of heredity in a living organism. All living things depend on
genes. Genes hold the information to build and maintain an organism's cells and pass
genetic traits to offspring

chromosome
A structure in the nucleus of all living cells that carries the genes determining heredity.
Chromosomes are made up of genes, which contain DNA ,the carrier of your genetic
information. This genetic info controls each cell, and when a cell divides, the DNA
sequence is copied for each gene, creating a copy of the entire chromosome for the new
cell.

To put things very simply, chromosomes are made up of genes and genes are
made of DNA. One could use the analogy; DNA- letters, genes-words,
chromosomes-books, genome-collective volume

Definition of Human genome

Human genome: All of the DNA that a person possesses. The human genome includes
every gene we own plus all of our junk DNA The human genome is both "the treasury of
human inheritance" and a vast dump (or recycling center).